Denmark’s bits-and-pieces side go down fighting in friendly with Slovakia

Slovakia’s Michal Duris tries to take the ball around Denmark’s man of the match, Christoffer Haagh.
Photograph: Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters

Denmark, fielding a severely weakened team containing players from the third tier of the national league and futsal players because of a pay dispute involving their top performers, were beaten 3-0 by Slovakia in a friendly at Trnava on Wednesday.

Slovakia strolled to victory against a side lacking names such as Christian Eriksen and Kasper Schmeichel, who helped Denmark reach the last 16 of the World Cup. Futsal is a five-a-side game usually played indoors on a hard court with a heavier ball. Ticket prices were slashed to €1 because of the depleted Danish team.

The home side went ahead when Adam Nemec beat the Denmark goalkeeper Christoffer Haagh, a futsal player, with a header in the 11th minute. Albert Rusnak made it 2-0 before half-time and a substitute, Adam Fogt, a futsal-playing political science student, unluckily put through his own net with 11 minutes left.

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Little was expected of the Danes with all 11 starting players making international debuts but the defeat turned out to be a moral victory as the 31-year-old Haagh played the game of his life. Coached by the former Arsenal midfielder John Jensen, the Danes looked well-organised and even created a few chances of their own. The Danish football association called the result an “honourable defeat”.

It remains to be seen what sort of team Denmark will field in their opening Uefa Nations League game at home to Wales on Sunday. Slovakia begin their campaign in Ukraine on the same day.

Unfortunately for the Danish players, their first caps may also prove to be their last as the Danish FA is hoping to resolve the dispute and recall their leading players for the game against Wales in Aarhus.

Slovakia, whose team included the Napoli midfielder Marek Hamsik and the former Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel, said beforehand that their squad had been harmed by the dispute and asked European football’s governing body, Uefa, to deal with the case, and confer “adequate consequences”. “It was tough to get motivated for a game like that,” Hamsik said.

Negotiations collapsed between the Danish footballers’ union and the FA over a collective bargaining agreement regarding commercial rights, and players from the original squad were sent back to their clubs on Monday. The Danish FA then selected a highly inexperienced squad in order to avoid possible reprisals from Uefa.

The previous collective bargaining agreement expired on 31 July and the two parties have been unable to agree a new one.